


a step by step guide to rebuilding a dysfunctional family

by celebreultimaverba, Royalwriter



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Canonical Character Death, Memory Issues, Multi, Nonbinary Mollymauk Tealeaf, Resurrection, Reunions, keg and molly team up to find the m9 the fic, pre-polynein implied
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-09
Updated: 2019-01-09
Packaged: 2019-10-07 10:01:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,982
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17363900
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/celebreultimaverba/pseuds/celebreultimaverba, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Royalwriter/pseuds/Royalwriter
Summary: They can't read the fucking note.Neither can Keg.They'll get there, eventually. They'll find their family, they'll figure it out.But first, bygodsis there a lot to do.





	a step by step guide to rebuilding a dysfunctional family

**Author's Note:**

> This started as an idea for a quick oneshot of Keg escorting Molly back to the Mighty Nein and spiralled. I hope you all enjoy!

There’s a note on their chest and dirt in their hair, but their coat is still hanging from the stick hammered into the ground.

They can’t read the fucking note.

This doesn’t upset them, necessarily. The fact that there’s a note at all is nice—they recognize the handwriting, halfway between scrawl and sane, even if they couldn’t quite say who it belonged to or why they know it. Even if they didn’t recognize it, there’s not quite enough of them around yet to be able to read it. Perhaps in the future.

It’s cold, but their shirt is covered in blood, so they strip that off and take their coat and wrap themself in it and the tapestry, folding up the note and sticking it deep into their pocket. They’ll find someone to read it for them.

The road isn’t far off. There’s a fallen tree off to the side of it that sends shivers down their spine, but they know the way they have to go, so they take a wide berth around that stretch of road without thinking too much about why they don’t like that part of it, and continue on. Their tapestry doesn’t keep out much of the cold, but their brisk pace keeps the falling snow from making them shiver too badly.

Save for their ears. Their ears are fucking freezing.

They’re hungry and tired by the time they come upon the town that they hadn’t realized they were searching for, and the sun is setting for the second time since they started walking, and they still don’t remember their name.

There’s a drunk dwarf in a bar that they stumble into, and when their eyes meet and the both of them just stare for a second, they get the feeling they’re not quite sure how the word hello works. Not with each other, anyway.

She speaks first. They haven’t figured out how yet.

“What the fuck?”

They smile. They _do_ know that.

* * *

Keg is drunk. Or something. She knows she’s drunk. She thinks she’s drunk, she’s definitely drunk but she didn’t think she was _this_ drunk.

Man, guilt is a shitty thing.

The purple tiefling smiles, and she repeats herself. “What the _fuck?”_

Mollymauk doesn’t stop smiling, just sidles up to the bar and sits next to her, then takes a piece of paper out of his pocket. He is not wearing a shirt, just the coat that Keg watched his friends put on his grave, and the dirty, weird, gaudy tapestry that he was wrapped up in before they put him in the ground. There’s still some blood on it.

It’s only then that she realizes it’s real. Her mind is not good enough to dream up this level of detail, no matter the guilt.

“This is the note Caleb put on you,” she tells him, putting out her cigarette to open it up. She looks at it for a second. “Even if I wasn’t drunk, I couldn’t read this. Tell your friends to have better handwriting.”

Molly laughs, and takes the note back.

“Can you talk?” she asks him.

He shakes his head.

“Do you know me?”

He nods.

“Do you know that your name is Mollymauk? They talked about how this happened before, you came back and might not remember.” At least, Keg thinks that was what was happening. People were crying. She was uncomfortable. Things were weird.

He pauses, seemingly taking in that information, and shakes his head.

She doesn’t know why he does it, doesn’t know exactly what he means by it, what it was in response to, but today is a day to go along with the weird shit happening. “You just missed them leaving. I think. I left first.”

She’s been kicking herself for it for four days, actually, but that’s not something she’s going to tell Molly. It’s probably good, anyway. She didn’t want to see Beau’s reaction to the letter she left.

 _Thanks._ She could have done better. Though it was better than talking about her eyes—

Keg finishes off her drink. This is a bad idea. The last time she was with them someone died. _She_ almost died. But Lorenzo also died, and there’s the dead tiefling, now alive after a week, standing in front of her, so fuck it.

“Do you want me to help you find them?” 

Molly furrows his brow, before nodding. Keg takes that to mean a, “I think yes.” If she’s wrong, she’s sure he’ll tell her.

Keg nods back. “Alright, alright, alright.” She gestures for another shot and downs it. It’s fine, she’ll be fine.

She can totally see Beau again, can see the rest of those weirdos again, and be completely normal. It’s fine.

“Let’s go find someone who knows how to fucking read!” Keg offers them a fist bump. Molly mimics it. She feels accomplished in what she’s teaching him, and holds onto that feeling as she pushes herself off the bar stool.

Keg kicks open the door to the pub. There’s a scrawny dude outside clearly trying to look tough. Perfect. She knows fresh meat, used to identifying and dragging said fresh meat into the alley and kicking the shit out of them if they were working for the wrong family. She’s beyond that now, or she’s at least thinking about it first, but the intimidation tactics still work.

She kicks out his feet so he slides to her level, planting an arm against his throat until he’s struggling for air.

“Listen closely, you sniveling piece of garbage. When I let go of your throat, you’re not going to scream. You’re going to listen very closely and do everything I say. If you don’t, I’ll smash every bone in your body, then dump it in an alley for your employer to find and draw conclusions about. I doubt they’ll believe your story about a stray dwarf mugging you. They’ll think you gave up dangerous secrets, and I’m sure you understand how that’s worse. You understand me?” Keg’s still got it. She hates that, a little bit.

Her mark is crying at this point, so she slowly moves her arm back. He takes a gasp of air, every part of his body trembling. He’s going to die in this town. She’s almost sorry for him.

“Yes, whatever you want, I’ll do it, please, please, just let me go. They’ll kill me if they think I snitched. Please.” The more he talks, the more he cries. She’s definitely sorry for him.

“Excellent. Read this.” She fully releases his throat, keeping her weight pinned against his legs so he can’t break free. He’s not struggling at this point, but it’s best to be safe rather than very, very sorry. She turns to Molly, and he hands her the note, having been clutching it too tightly once it was given back.

“I— Is this a trick?” 

“Nope. Read it,” Keg insists.

“Please,” Mollymauk adds from behind her, and Keg almost cracks a smile. Maybe all the gibberish at his funeral had been as heartfelt as it had been anchored in the fresh wound of grief. First thing she hears him say, and it’s to make up for her… being her.

“It— It just says that your name is Mollymauk, and to find someone through the Gentleman in Zadash. Why did you want me to read this? Is this some kind of a trap? Oh god, what did I just do?” He starts struggling under Keg again. She considers letting him go, or pressing harder on his throat until he pisses his pants. 

She feels Molly’s eyes on her, though, and she remembers the grief stricken spiels about him leaving each town better than he found it. Keg can practically smell that this kid won’t last long in Shady Creek Run, probably even less time than most other lowlife criminals do. Keg is by far not the worst that the Run has to offer, especially not anymore. If she’s this much of a threat to him, then there’s no way that he would live through anything else. The opportunity is dangling in front of her, and gods damn it, Keg takes it.

“Yeah. This is a trap. If I ever see you in this town again—and I have eyes _everywhere_ in this town, make no mistake—you will die. You will die, painfully, slowly, and you won’t see it coming. Get out of this town. Run.” Looking into his eyes, Keg sees a fear that she knows all too well. She wants to take advantage of it, somewhere deep inside herself. Instead, she releases her grip on his throat and stands.

The kid scrambles to his feet, glaring at her through the tears in his eyes. She growls “Shoo,” and he bolts towards the entrance of the town.

Keg stretches, turning back to Molly. He slow claps at her.

“That was— quite a show.” It’s the most she’s heard him speak so far. It’s a little stilted, like he’s trying to speak through some mental block. But he’s been dead for a week, so she supposes he gets a pass for that.

“Yeah, whatever. He’s better off outside of this shithole. We have our information, we should get a room for the night and skip town in the morning.” Keg starts to walk away, but she waits until she’s aware of Molly walking behind her to speed up.

* * *

That night, Molly dreams. 

They fall through inky blackness onto thick dirt that gives beneath them. The fall never stops, just slows. The ground closes above them, and when they breathe, it fills their lungs. They need to cough, to clear this toxin, but there’s nothing to be done.

Their friends stand above them, hurt, hurting, empty. It’s okay, that time. People lose people, and Molly was practically living to be lost. They’re almost accepting of it.

Then they hear the scream. Wordless, soul-wrenching, with lighting and thunder echoing it through clouds. The loss hits them. They try to call out, to beg the scream to stop, to beg for freedom. No words will form. There’s a difference between being accepting of leaving like this and being accepting of leaving their family _alone, hurting—_

They quickly find, though, that one cannot speak without air, and one cannot breathe with dirt in their lungs. So Mollymauk stays silent as those they love fade underneath black. Or maybe they’re the one fading.

Mollymauk stays silent as their body forgets their mind, as memories seep into the soil with their body. As the fungus overtakes them, as death takes them properly. For a little, at least.

And then darkness again, then the pain of needing to breathe and being unable to. Molly starts to dig upward, what they hope is up, but this time the dirt just keeps falling.

They’re shaken awake before they can find air.

“Hey! Dude, you’re freaking me the fuck out, are you good?” The dwarf’s still here. Keg. Her name comes easier, today. 

In their sleep-hazed state, her name comes with an image of her, nervous, around their fire. Hands wringing even as she tried to still them. Mollymauk shakes it off.

“Sorry— I— Nightmares. I’m okay.” They run a hand through their hair, certain that they can still feel dirt in it even after a bath. Perhaps it’s just the feeling of being in this town.

“Nah, you’re chill. You were just screaming bloody murder, and given the recent—” Keg waves her hand, vague. She doesn’t want to say death. “I just wanted to make sure your organs weren’t spilling out. Not that I could do anything if they were but like, I could _know._ Ya dig?”

Mollymauk thinks they might. The lingering of the dream is anchoring them to this form, anchoring them to words. Memories, though, are still further away.

“I dig.” Because that’s a feeling that’s ingrained into blood cells, into every piece of a mind even when it’s fully remade, even when the context for it has slipped far beyond anywhere they could find. The desire to know someone else’s hurt, even if it’s not possible to mend it, that, they know. They know that well.

Keg nods, and it’s only then that they notice the bags under her eyes.

They don’t know how to express their worry about this, so they just gesture to the bed she’s meant to be sleeping in, and hope that her darkvision picks up on the questioning look on their face.

She looks over to it, brow furrowing a bit. “I don’t— what, do you want to sleep with me?”

They pause, then shake their head, gesturing again. She huffs quietly, frustrated. “Learn how to speak,” she tells them, going back to her bed.

Molly doesn’t lie back down, and she doesn’t either.

It’s too much time, probably, before she says, “Go to sleep.”

They shake their head, gesturing to her.

She looks down to the bed, then finally seems to get it. “I don’t— someone should be watching,” she tells them.

They pause, not knowing how to argue. Finally, they flip open the covers of their own bed, and scootch back to the other side of the bed. It creates an open spot, an invitation for her to sleep, too.

They close their eyes, nightmare playing under their eyelids, and don’t sleep.

Keg doesn’t take the invitation. She lights a cigarette, doesn’t close her eyes, and doesn’t sleep, either.

* * *

“I don’t know where Zadash is,” Keg tells Molly.

He looks up from his breakfast, and laughs.

His laugh is annoying. That could just be because she’s exhausted. “It’s an issue, okay? If you want to find your friends, we have to find this Gentleman guy. And he’s apparently in Zadash. Which is somewhere in the Empire, but I was born here. I don’t know shit about it.”

Molly reaches into his bag. Keg wishes she could say that she watches his hand closely, but she doesn’t. Hopefully it’s not a dumb idea to trust this guy.

He pulls out a piece of parchment and she’s hoping he’s about to draw her a map, but instead he draws a few houses, a line, then an arrow. Keg thinks it’s the best map he can do. “That’s… the Glory Run Road. Maybe.”

Gods, she is not the right person for this job. She does not have the object permanence to decipher this map. Or any map, actually. “We should get a guide.”

Molly looks up at her, then turns out a pocket.

“Right. Beau took all your money.” Keg looks down at the wooden table they’re sitting out, and doesn’t attempt to do the math required to think about how much a guide and some weeks of food and lodging would cost. It’s almost certainly too much. “We might be fucked.”

Molly laughs again, and shrugs. She’s a bit less annoyed by it, this time. “Anything you can hock for some extra gold?”

He pauses, then pulls out his bag, dumping it out on the table.

Everything is covered in glitter, and absolutely none of it looks like anything that can be pawned to someone in Shady Creek Run.

Keg hums. “This is worthless. We might have to steal some money.”

Molly nods.

“You’re okay with that? Thought your friends called you a good person.” It’s a little teasing.

Molly is silent for a few moments, then replies, “I am. Someone rich.”

“You’re really gonna have to learn how to speak better. I don’t want to have to decode all your— you wanna steal from someone rich?”

Molly nods.

Keg laughs. “...Yeah, alright. But you’re the one who’s gonna have to do that. My armor clanks a lot.”

He nods again. “Who?”

“Who should we steal from? Well, we have a few options…”

The rest of the morning is spent with a quiet discussion of how to get the money that they’ll probably need, Molly interjecting when he can. Keg isn’t sure about the plan, but it’s the best thing they’ve got right now. She _could_ just mug them, but she didn’t make that an option, a little too aware of the shit Beau was crying about, how his cons make people happy. A mugging isn’t a con, but.

Well, it’s fine.

Mollymauk has finished putting his things back in his bag by the time they’ve made a sort of plan, but there’s still glitter in the grain of the wood that Keg decides not to comment on. “We’ll need to get you a shirt,” she points out. Molly looks down at his chest, technically bare though he’s been getting away with it by wearing his coat.

He chuckles, and shrugs before nodding. She’s gotten a bit less annoyed by his laugh over their little breakfast slash conversation, and even finds herself liking it by now. 

“I’m glad you agree. We’ll do that, uh, after we have actual cash. I hope you don’t need anything all that fancy. You’re not gonna find it here.”

He scrunches up his nose, pulls his coat tighter around himself, and makes a noise of questioning as he starts getting up from their table.

Keg is kind of proud of herself for starting to decode his charades. Maybe he’s getting better at them, or maybe she’s getting used to him not always being able to talk, but it’s started to work out. Of course, she could just be getting lucky. That’s always a possibility. There’s nothing saying that she’s just settling into something good before it goes bad. Wouldn’t be the first time.

“Yeah, we can go,” she says, dropping a couple of copper on the table for their meal and gesturing Molly back up to their shared room.

“We’re gonna need to ditch some of— you know what. This isn’t gonna work,” she says, when Molly drops his bag on the bed he slept in.

He makes a quiet “mm?” and she shakes her head.

“Yeah. I can’t fucking talk. _You_ can’t fucking talk. We’re not gonna be able to make this a con. I’m just gonna— I’ll get us some cash, no conning necessary.”

She doesn’t explain herself when he furrows his eyebrows, though she does laugh and shake her head when he wiggles them. “If you’re implying anything by that, no, I’m not gonna go to the Landlocked Lady and help out there, nothing like that. Just. I know how things work here. It’s the easiest way.”

She’s gonna mug someone, is what she’s saying. She doesn’t want to say that to _Molly,_ though.

He hums, gestures her to go along with a shrug. “Someone rich,” he reminds her.

She half-feels like kissing him on the forehead before she backs out the door. “Someone rich, I promise.”

* * *

They’re not _that_ rich. But they’re the richest Keg can make them without putting herself in danger. She’s _not_ about to go up against any of the Jagentoth’s bodyguards or some shit like that just to please Molly by taking out some rich asshole. No, she’s not stupid.

There’s enough gold in it for them to get out of Shady Creek Run, though, and hopefully a little further. If they don’t buy horses, they may even get to Zadash.

Depending on how far Zadash is. Keg still doesn’t know.

She drops the coin purse down next to Molly’s face, which has his eyes closed. Probably napping while she was gone. She’s almost jealous.

He startles awake, and the quickness of his movement almost puts Keg on edge, wondering if she’s about to get hit by some jumpy asshole getting woken up too rudely for their own tastes. But his red eyes latch onto hers and he relaxes, looking away only after a moment to paw through the coin purse. He seems pleased, smile almost as golden as the coins, and Keg’s chest twists in a way that resembles softness.

She jerks her eyes away before it goes too far. He doesn’t need softness and guilt from her, he needs a plan. She can provide that.

“If we’re smart about it, it should get us to Zadash. Probably. Maybe. I don’t fucking know. I might have to steal more, can you live with that?” She runs an anxious hand over her jawline. She needs to shave. Stubble’s hot when you’re dragging it over someone’s thighs, but she doesn’t want a full beard.

Molly nods. “Rich.”

“Yeah, yeah, they’ll be rich. I’ll be sure to spend money on supplies so we don’t end up rich enough that I steal from us. That’d be a nice change of pace.”

Molly frowns at her joke and she waves her hand.

“I know, I know. Do you give a shit about what kind of supplies I get?”

“For food. Something nice.” Molly’s voice is soft. Keg rolls her eyes, but nods. It’s not an unreasonable request. She thinks she can make it not set them back too far.

“Something nice. Got it. I’ll get you a shirt, too.”

 _She’s_ the one that laughs at that, mostly due to the face he gives her—bordering on a pout.

He gets up, and she pauses. “You wanna come?”

Molly nods, and Keg steps to let him out the door. Can’t hurt, having him around. Maybe she can’t haggle quite as well, but since she left the Shepherds, it’s not as if she can get many things for free. People just aren’t _scared_ enough.

They don’t have a lot of money, and the Run hardly has many high-end food merchants, but Keg does her best. Whether that’s out of friendship or guilt, she doesn’t know, and doesn’t care to dissect.

“If we’re getting good food, we’re not getting road snacks,” she warns Molly, who frowns.

“Bakeries have donuts. They last.”

“No, they— do you think that donuts are a road snack? They get _stale._ Who’s been feeding you stale donuts?”

“Jester,” he replies.

Keg blinks, trying to remember who Jester was. The blue one? Probably the blue one. “Okay,” she says dumbly. “Well. How about you look around this town, and you tell me if you think Shady Creek Run has a bakery that nice. Or a bakery at all.”

He does, and shakes his head, though he doesn’t look very happy about it.

“We’re not getting road snacks.”

* * *

“And throw in some snacks for the road,” Keg growls, hand still fisted in the collar of the shopkeep she’s threatening.

She knows this one by name—married her, once, actually—and she isn’t easily intimidated, these days. But haggling by intimidation rather than persuasion is just the way of the Run, so this is really the only way Keg can get the prices down. Her days of sleeping with Retta for the discounts on booze are over. Mostly because Retta decided that for Keg, in the divorce.

“Road snacks?” Retta asks, disbelieving. “Are you fucking kidding me?”

Keg drops her collar. “No. You think we only want shitty rations?”

Retta looks at the pile of food and supplies that Molly has accrued. “They’re the least shitty rations you’re going to find in the Run. I’m not adding fucking road snacks.”

Keg is silent for a few seconds, before she asks, “C’mon, not even for old times’ sake?”

She can practically _feel_ Molly’s ears perk up, but she was expecting that. He seems the type to care about this sort of gossip.

Retta laughs, which is either a good sign or a bad one. “Wasn’t it agreed that we wouldn’t be sleeping together anymore?”

“Only that I couldn’t do it for discounts on booze. You’ll notice that we are not buying any booze.”

Molly takes two bottles of wine off of the counter. Keg feels the loss, not in her stomach or heart, but her flask, which is probably more vital than both.

Retta, pretending not to be amused, crosses her arms. “You’ve gotten soft, haggling like this.”

Keg shrugs, a quick look afforded back to Molly. She just wants to be out of this town, and he seems to be of a similar mindset. “Maybe that’s why I’m leaving.”

“Good for you, then,” Retta says. “I’m still not giving you snacks for free.”

Keg shakes her head. “Fine. But you’re much less fun, now that you’re not afraid of getting maimed anymore. I liked you better before we got married.”

Retta laughs again. “And that’s why I say you’re soft. I don’t believe you’d hurt me, marriage or not.”

Keg frowns. “Fine. No road snacks.”

She hears Molly’s whine in disappointment behind her, but doesn’t acknowledge it. She can’t. They really can’t afford to go anywhere else for rations. Retta isn’t intimidated by Keg, but at least she doesn’t jack up the prices like almost everyone in town. They know Keg dropped out of the Shepherds. Whether that’s because Retta pitied her, had some code of honor in the way she did business, or had some lingering feelings of any sort for Keg, Keg doesn’t know.

And she will never, ever ask.

(And Retta says _Keg_ is getting soft.)

She shells out the gold to pay for the food they’ve gotten, and decides that the rest of it should probably be saved, rather than spent on booze.

She does buy Mollymauk the sweetest thing in the shop, though. He asked for a road snack, and Keg’s no Jester, but. He asked.

* * *

There’s a stretch of road in front of them, and Molly’s grave to the left somewhere, and they do not like it.

Keg had stopped when they did, seemingly recognizing the hill and fallen tree as well, and they’re both silent for a few seconds.

“Do you remember what happened?” Keg asks.

Molly shrugs.

They do, but not much. They remember their eyes never shutting, facing down that death for a gamble that didn’t pay off but may have saved Beau. They remember the pain of it, though they hadn’t really been conscious right then. They think they remember getting buried, and decomposed, but that was almost certainly a dream. They barely remember digging themself out.

They do remember Keg. Beau. Nott. Caleb. (Keg helped them, remembering names.)

They cast their eyes to the ground, taking steps down the road. There’s a layer of snow on some parts, muddied by dirt. They don’t see any blood, though they pause when they feel like they’ve found the spot they died.

Molly turns back to Keg. She hasn’t moved forward, yet.

“I’m sorry,” she says. Her voice is thin, forced through a tight throat.

“Don’t be,” they reply. The words come a little hard, right here.

Keg doesn’t answer, and they’re not sure what else to say. They step off the spot. Gesture her forward. Then it’s back down the road for them. They still don’t know where Zadash is, but Keg knows how to get places with the Glory Run Road, and they have a map neither of them can read in their bag, so they will figure out how to get there eventually.

Key word being eventually. They’re counting days since the Nein left—it’s been maybe a week since they left. About two since Molly died.

“Are you good?” Keg asks, shaking Molly out of it, slightly.

They smile, nod, then shrug.

“Pretty good?”

They nod. The two of them have gotten used to this system, sort of, because Keg needs to make sure that she’s understanding their lack of words, and they’re still getting used to having to do charades or pick and choose important words to get their point across. They’re getting better, the both of them.

“Well, good,” Keg says, gruffly, and strides forward, making sure not to falter over the stretch of road where Mollymauk fell.

She punches them in the leg when she passes, and they wince. “Let’s keep going. We don’t have to stay here.”

Molly hums, kicks the ground, and follows her happily.

* * *

When they step into Hupperdook, Keg is wildly underwhelmed. She’s heard rumors of it before, of this notorious party town. Mollymauk’s been practically vibrating the whole trip there. He remembers at least enough of this town to know that he likes it, even if he doesn’t remember the details of their last visit. She worries that he’ll be disappointed, and end up spending the rest of the night trying to act like he isn’t. She has not told him of this worry.

“I gotta say, there’s not really much happening in this place. You sure this is it?” Keg asks.

Molly furrows his brow, thinking, and then laughs. He does that, reacting to his own thoughts and memories like they’re happening to someone else. It’s a bit refreshing to watch, though it will fuck them up if they ever need to lie. “Yes. Not until night though. Then people get crazy.” 

“Alright, I’ll take your word for it. If not, you owe me a drink.”

“Don’t have money.”

“Yeah, like I could forget that fact. Come on, let’s go get somewhere to stay.”

A few hours later, and Keg is retracting her earlier statement about Hupperdook not being interesting. She’s several drinks in, not quite enough to not know where she is, but enough that she knows this place is a good time.

“Okay, maybe I owe you a drink!” She has to shout to be heard over the music. It’s interesting, how much of Molly is coming back in this crowd. 

He’s been grabbing random people to dance with, and despite the fact that he can’t talk to ask, people have a pretty good time with it. Molly has to bend down in order to dance with most of the residents. They stare up at him at first, but as he keeps dancing they get used to it, allowing the energy of the night (and likely a few drinks) to carry them into it.

When he notices her staring, he spins his way back over to her, grabbing her hands. She tries to shove him off, but not with enough strength to actually do so. He ignores it, knowing that if she didn’t want to be touched, she’d make it clearer. They had this little struggle earlier in the week. He’s learned.

“See? Nighttime?” he yells. 

“I get it, yeah!” she yells back. He pulls her closer, probably to insist on a dance. A look crosses over his face though and he leads Keg out of the bar instead.

“Wait, where are we going?” Keg breathes in the fresh air. She wants more booze, though, and she doubts there will be much of that outside.

“I remembered something else,” he says, breathless enough that she lets him keep leading.

Molly takes them to a stand, picking out two items laid out on the countertop. It takes Keg some negotiating until he has two strange shaped things in his hands.

“What the fuck are you doing?” Keg asks. She probably should have asked _before_ buying him this, but.

“Stand back.” Molly says. Keg wants to stop him, but she finds herself pressed against a wall instead. If he wants to kill himself, she’s not going down with him.

He lights part of it and then steps back himself. It’s a few seconds, before he tilts her chin back and the sky lights up with color.

She's seen color before, of course, but not like this. The sky splits into a burst of red, stark against the black. She's not used to color designed solely to strike joy, and the amazement of it plays across her face as she watches it play across the sky. Molly giggles with delight, a sound she's heard more throughout the night than in the days since he came back. She laughs with him.

“That's fucking incredible!”

She stays looking up at the fireworks for a few minutes, taking in the ones Molly had lit, and the ones that other people on the street have bought and set off. She lights a cigarette, watching, and Molly taps her.

She looks to him, and he gestures at the cigarette. “Oh,” she says. “Want a drag?”

He nods, and she passes it up. “Go nuts.”

He puts his lips to the unlit end, breathes in, and immediately starts coughing. Keg takes it back, taking advantage of his doubled-over form to stroke a hand through his hair, and he takes a second to recover, before shaking his head.

“It takes some getting used to,” Keg admits, letting go of his hair as he straightens, looking over at her.

“I remembered one other thing,” he tells her, smile still wide on his face.

Keg looks up at him, feels the smile on her own face. She thinks, _Okay, fuck it._ The first idea went really well. She’ll dive into this second one.

* * *

“I’m not saying I’m never drinking again, because I know myself, but I fucking hate hangovers,” Keg tells Molly, who nods.

Their forehead is on the table, because they didn’t drink any water when drinking last night, and they’re an _idiot_ for that.

“Do you want breakfast?”

They nod again. Food won’t help as much as water, but it certainly won’t hurt, so breakfast isn’t the worst idea they’ve ever heard.

“I was gonna have you eat anyway, so thanks for agreeing,” she says, patting the back of their head.

With that, she waves over the woman working. Ireena, Molly thinks. If they were better, they’d tell Keg about how she flirted with Fjord, back when they needed a babysitter and decided a prostitute was the next best thing. She’d probably laugh at it, and they like Keg laughing.

“Can I get, just, so much bacon for me,” Keg says, when she bustles over. “And then, the sweetest thing you make here, for him.”

Molly can feel their ears perk up, and they lift their head from the table. Oh, they haven’t told anyone yet. Keg will need to know.

Ireena leaves, and Molly speaks up. “They.”

Keg makes a sound of question, the same sound she makes when she needs more explanation.

“Not for him. For them.”

It’s a few seconds of Keg processing this, and then she clarifies. “You mean you? I should have said for them, not for him, when I was ordering?”

Molly nods, happy they don’t have to figure out more words for it. Words are coming a little easier now that it’s been a little while since they got out of the ground, but it still seems, some days, like they have a certain amount of words before they’re out, and this seems important to them, but not more important than being able to speak to Keg for the rest of the day. She hasn’t minded their bad days, but they still enjoy not having to do charades. When their words go, it’s a lot more difficult for them to keep a good hold on the rest of themself.

“Gotcha. I’ll remember that. Your friends, they used he for you.”

Molly nods. “Didn’t care then.”

Keg nods. She waits a few seconds before asking, “Are you different? Now that you’re back?”

Mollymauk has to think about that. “Not much,” they say, finally. “It’s different. From the first time.”

“How?”

“I had people to come back to.”

“Did you not, the first time?”

Molly shakes their head. “I don’t remember. I don’t think so.”

They found out a little more about it when they were alive again the first time, but Cree putting hands on their shoulders and calling them by a different name seems so incredibly far away, now. They barely remember her name, they certainly don’t remember the one she gave them.

“That’s shitty.”

Molly laughs, leaning against their hand. “Shitty. Yeah.”

“How much do you remember about your time with them?”

“Not everything, but enough,” they reply, after a few seconds. It’s the most concise way they can think of.

Keg hums, probably sensing that they’re conserving words. They can talk about this when they’ve got more. “Now that we’re in Hupperdook, we should find someone who can read a map,” she tells him. “We only got here by following a road, but we’re not gonna be able to figure out a way to Zadash on that kinda luck.”

Molly nods. “I know someone,” they tell her. “I want to see someone.”

“One someone, or two different someones?”

They hold up a finger.

Ireena comes back over, then, with a plate full of bacon and some sort of pastry. Keg thanks her quietly, and Molly reaches over the table to steal some of her bacon. She slaps their hand, but not hard enough to truly dissuade them.

Sometime last night, they remembered Kiri. Jester and Beau, at the very least, will want to know how she’s doing, and Molly wants to know, too. Better if her new family gives them a little something so they don’t need to pay for more rations. Molly is pretty sure they do something with food. They know, generally, how they would find the family.

And all the power to them, if one of her new parents can tell them how to get to Zadash. If not, maybe the Tinkertops will know something.

Keg falls into silence and Molly follows suit, naturally, as they both eat their breakfasts. Molly is a fan of the food. It’s not wonderful, but it’s rich and sweet, and the company makes it better, hangover or not.

By the end of the meal, they feel much less hungover, and much more up for the idea of finding Kiri and the man that made that huge construct and Nott’s crossbow.

“Who are we finding first?” Keg asks, polishing off her fourth mug of plain water.

“Kiri,” they say, definitively. They think they can find her easier. Hupperdook can’t have too many butcher shops.

(They think it was a butcher shop.)

* * *

Hupperdook has many butcher shops.

They should have known this, really, because they know how large Hupperdook is, as a city, and though the residential district is gorgeous, it’s also really fucking big. Keg has been following Molly, but they don’t really seem to know where they’re going. Of course, she probably shouldn’t be following someone that she knows has memory problems, but they seemed pretty decisive when they told her the kid’s (she thinks it’s a kid they’re finding) name.

“Molly,” she says, after they’ve been staring for about thirty-five seconds at the fourth butcher shop they’ve stumbled across (she counted).

They start, look to her.

“Do you know where you’re going? Where you are?” she asks, trying her hardest to sound gentle.

They don’t answer.

Damn it.

Keg takes their hand, takes them away from the shop. They follow, obedient, wordless. It’s a give and take, she thinks. Molly was most social, most themself, last night, and was pretty good this morning, and Keg thinks that maybe they’ve been… poured out. If Keg were smarter, she’d be able to figure out how that worked. How much memory Molly needed to be steeped in before they drifted away with it, how much identity they need to figure out about themself before they lose their grasp on it. But she can just figure that it’s all connected, that remembering Hupperdook and telling her their preferred pronouns fucked them up for a little bit.

She knows enough about Kiri that she could recognize her on sight. They weren’t very descriptive, but a talking kenku about her own size is rare enough that Keg doubts there will be many. The problem is in that they’re going from butcher shop to butcher shop looking for this child, and keep stopping to stare at every pastry and meat they pass.

Keg’s going to have to ask around, isn’t she. She’s not very good at small talk, but somehow she doubts that Molly will let her beat the shit out of the next store clerk she sees for information, even in the state they’re currently in. 

A glance around reveals a bench next to a relatively unoccupied square. There’s nothing nearby to distract Molly into wandering too far in a short time span. Keg hopes.

“Okay, sit here, and don’t move. I’m going to go make a dumbass of myself to learn where your friend is, okay?” Keg says.

Mollymauk nods at her, but there’s not enough in their eyes for her to trust it. Fuck it, she’ll be fast.

There’s a bell above the butcher’s shop that jingles as she steps inside, and there’s a gnome behind the counter that looks up and grins at her. “What can I do for you?” he asks.

“Uh, yeah. Can I get just, dried jerky,” Keg starts, wincing a little at herself. They _could_ use the rations, but she wasn’t exactly looking to shop.

“How much?”

“A… pound. And, while you’re at it, do you know a little— like, a bird? A kid, but she’s a bird. A kenku, do you know a kid like that around here? Her name’s Kiri.”

The man kind of pauses, and replies, “Why are you looking for her?”

So he does know. Shouldn’t have showed his cards like that, should have asked for more information on the kid, should have tried to get his answers without tipping Keg off that he does know. Amateur move. Less than amateur, really.

She almost says as much, before she reminds that this isn’t an interrogation, and not an intimidation. She’s being… pleasant. “I’m not,” she replies. “My friend is. They, uh, know her.”

“I don’t know too much about any kids besides my own,” he says, a bit shortly. Even Keg can tell that she’s being lied to. “Would you like this jerky wrapped?”

“Yeah,” Keg says, just as shortly. Intimidation would be _so_ much easier.

She pays, walks out of the shop with a scowl, and immediately notices that Molly is not where she left them.

“Oh, _fuck_ me,” she says, quietly, stuffing the jerky in her bag and making her way over to where she’d left Molly. They must have wandered off, like she was worried about, but they couldn’t have gotten far.

She flips off the Schuster Butcher Shop and treks off to find them. Most interesting direction first—towards the waterfall.

Molly isn’t all too hard to find, though it takes her twenty some minutes to do so. Seeing their familiar purple tail swishing out from under their coat loosens something vital in her chest, and she can’t suppress her delighted, “Molly!”

They perk up and turn, and it’s then that Keg notices the kids that they’re hanging around. A few gnome children, and a kenku.

“Well, damn, you found her on your own,” Keg says, trying not to seem too intimidating when she strides up.

It doesn’t quite work, because one of the kids takes a step back, but the kenku that even Keg can infer is Kiri doesn’t, so, that’s at least a win. Molly beams at Keg, taking her hand so they can gesture at the kids as if they’re introducing them.

“Sorry, they can’t speak right now. I’m Keg. This is Mollymauk.”

“Yeah, we know,” one of the kids says. “We’ve met him before.”

“Why can’t he talk?” another asks.

“They can’t talk,” Keg corrects, kindly as she can manage, “because they’re… well, they can only say some words right now. They’re getting better, but they can only talk a little bit right now.”

“My name is Kiri,” Kiri says, in a vaguely familiar voice. Keg thinks it’s one of the Mighty Nein that was kidnapped.

“Oh, yeah, like Kiri can’t talk?” the first gnome asks.

“…Sort of,” Keg allows, because it’s probably the easiest explanation for what happened to Molly.

“Okay. That’s fine, then.”

“Yeah.” There’s an awkward silence between them all, before Keg asks, “Do any of you guys know how to read a map?”

* * *

They end up staying in Hupperdook a few more days, though they don’t stay in the same inn. Once the Schusters realized who they were, they insisted on harboring them. They apologized to Keg, too, but when she thought about it, she wouldn’t let herself near kids either.

It also turned out that while Kiri could not read a map, the Schusters definitely could. So Keg is willing to call this one a win. They leave with more rations than they showed up with, a clear path to Zadash, and a semi-consistent light back in Molly’s eyes.

Between Kiri and Molly, neither of them talk much, but the other kids more than make up for the quiet. Kiri cues the other kids for stories with simple words, and they talk about the Mighty Nein.

They paint pictures of heroes. These kids respect the ragtag group of nobodies who saved their parents, and Keg respects them for it. She leaves with her heart warm. Molly’s chattering even as they’re leaving, not seeming to care for conserving their words for the day. She takes it as a good sign.

They have horses now, too. Keg can’t decide how she feels about hers. It’s a stout pony that threatens to bite her, but refrains even when she goads it. They couldn’t find Molly a horse extra enough to match their personality, but it’s a near thing. The horses should help speed them along. They desperately need it. The rest in Hupperdook was good for Molly’s mental state, terrible for everything else. Keg can only hope that the Nein stayed for a little while in Zadash.

The day’s travel goes by without much incident, and when they settle down by a fire, Keg starts to eat the nicer meat they were given.

She’s halfway through a piece of jerky when she feels Molly’s eyes boring holes into her.

“What?” she mumbles around the jerky in her mouth.

Molly tilts their head, but doesn’t answer.

“What? Say it, or stop looking at me like a kicked puppy and sleep.”

“What happened after I died? You’ve told me a little, but not too much. How did everything shake out?” Though Keg pushed for it, the question takes her by surprise. How do you tell someone how their friends reacted and moved on from their death?

“Well, after we got away from Lorenzo, we spent some time trying to find other people who could help us, but we only really found this one guy.” She laughs, thinking of Clay, but before she can go into describing him, Molly speaks.

“How’d you get away? Last I saw, he seemed pretty determined to take out every man standing.” Molly won’t stop looking at her.

“I— uh, offered myself as a sacrifice. He wasn’t interested in taking it, he just wanted to prove some shitty point. Looking at me on the ground was apparently enough to know he’d done it, so he left.” Keg breaks eye contact, then, since Molly won’t, kicking at the dirt.

“Well, that was awfully brave of you. Did you know he wouldn’t kill you?”

“Nah, but it was too little, too late, anyways. You were already dead, so—”

“Hey, that’s not fair.” Molly reaches out to tilt Keg’s chin up, and she doesn’t fight them. They move their hand away once she’s looking at them, and some part of her wishes they hadn’t. “You couldn’t have done anything to save me. I was determined to do what I did, and it all worked out, didn’t it?”

“We could still die before we find them,” Keg points out, just to be ornery. Molly, instead of being annoyed, beams.

“Well. Let’s hope we don’t. What happened after?”

She loves how talkative they are, even if it means they might end up being all poured out tomorrow. Hupperdook was good for them. She’s realizing, now, how strange it is to have Mollymauk be silent. “We ended up in this creepy graveyard with this pink haired firbolg. We thought he might kill us, but instead he just offered us some tea, or tried to. It was weird. He was pretty cool, though. Nice undercut, pretty solid color scheme.”

“Ooh, what colors?”

“Pink and green. What was weird was, he came with us without asking for anything in return, either. Called all of us good people.”

Molly laughs, and waggles their eyebrows. “Sounds like I missed out on someone pretty _interesting.”_ They layer the word interesting with too many implications, and Keg swats at them.

“He’d never left the forest before, apparently. I don’t think the poor guy even knew what _interesting_ would consist of.” 

“That doesn’t mean no one can ever show him.”

Keg shrugs in acknowledgement.

“Anyhow, somehow we managed to get all of them out and kill every last bastard in the place. Got your friends and a couple of other people out safely. No one was too hurt, we got there before Lorenzo could really do much of anything. I stayed the night and then they left in the morning.” She rushes through the last part. Molly, damn them, is unusually alert for that specifically, apparently.

“Wait, wait, what else happened?”

“The fuck are you talking about?”

“What part did you skip?” They raise their eyebrows again, and damn her, Keg spills.

“Beau and I slept together. But it was fine. It didn’t mean anything, unless she wanted it to mean something, but she almost certainly didn’t, and I’m cool, like— I know how to be cool. Anyhow. It’s fine.” She’s beet red, she can tell.

“Suuure.” Molly drawls.

“Shut up.” 

They raise their hands in mock defense, letting the issue rest. Keg scowls. She _is_ cool about it, damn it.

There’s silence, for a few moments, before Molly says, “She’s cool.”

Keg laughs. “Yeah, she’s really cool.”

“I’m glad you guys got rid of those slavers. I’m glad you found someone to help. I’m _really_ glad Beau got to bone. You’re her type.”

“I am?”

“I mean, insofar as I know that I’m not her type at all. She’s into, you know, strong women, I think.”

Keg’s a little too flattered about that, and she hopes it doesn’t show up too much on her face. It must, because Molly chuckles quietly, and leans a bit to the left, hitting their shoulder against hers. “I’m glad we found you,” they say.

It sends a sharp stab of guilt through her. She kind of winces. “I got you killed.”

“I got myself killed. Can I— here. You’ve been drinking this, right?” they ask, holding up Keg’s flask.

“Yeah,” she replies. She’s been drinking it less, now that Molly’s around, but she can’t say she’s not still taking advantage of some of the hard liquor they got in Hupperdook. Molly got her off her bender, but she’s not _dead._

“Awesome. I’m gonna show you what I can do.”

With that, they hold up a hand, and Keg feels like she’s being forced to sweat. It’s a really fucking weird feeling, and she watches as Molly pulls something out of her skin.

“That’s alcohol,” they tell her, as it splashes to the ground. “That’s what I can do. And— look.”

They gesture to their neck, which is bleeding. Keg sits up straighter, making a sound that’s a little embarrassing, how worried it is.

Molly laughs, waves their hand. “I’m okay. This is what I do. Weird blood magic. It hurts me. I tried to fuck up Lorenzo, because Beau wasn’t doing great, and I pretty much knocked myself out. Couldn’t lose that much blood and couldn’t get away after. Lorenzo fucked me up because of it. It was my own damn fault.”

Keg doesn’t know what to say to that. “Well, Beau’s fine,” she finally tells them.

They snicker. “Oh, yeah, as you found out, I’m sure.”

Keg punches them.

* * *

Zadash is larger than all the cities Molly has seen so far, and they’re very into it.

“Okay,” they say. “Now we find the Gentleman.”

Keg, looking at the tens to hundreds of people in the street they’re on, hums. “This is a fucking big place.”

“Yep!” Molly chirps.

“We’re not gonna find one guy just on luck.”

“Nope!” they chirp again. “But I remember how to find him.”

“Okay, good,” she says.

Twenty-five minutes later, they’re leaning over a counter with a grin on their face and front pressed up against the wood, mostly to avoid their fear that as soon as Keg gets a clear shot, she’s going to punch them in the stomach.

“Mr. Sol,” they purr. “It’s wonderful to see you again.”

They’re fairly sure that this firbolg isn’t the Gentleman. But they _did_ know how to get to him, once they realized halfway through their confident stride that “underground bar” and something about maybe giving gifts isn’t enough detail to get them to the Gentleman.

But they _absolutely_ remember Pumat Sol. All four of him.

“It’s great to see you, as well,” this Pumat replies. “I was wondering where you went off to, when your friends came in to shop.”

The mention of their friends sends a thrill through Molly, who wants to launch themself over the counter and press their lips to this firbolg’s smiling, arcanely-crafted mouth, because they’re so _fucking_ happy to be this close. “You know I wouldn’t willingly be passing up on another chance to see you. When did they come in?”

“Ah, well, your blue friend came in the other day to pick up her commissioned axe. She said you all were on your way out of Zadash, I thought you would have been going with.”

Though it doesn’t make Molly’s face fall to hear that the Mighty Nein have already left, they can feel it—and Keg does, too, considering the way her hand settles on their hip. “We’re catching up,” she tells him.

“Of course. I don’t think I’ve met you.”

“Keg.”

“Nice to meet you, Keg.”

“Uh-huh. Why are there four of you?”

Molly and Pumat Sol both laugh, and Molly takes the opportunity while Pumat is explaining things to flit around the store, looking over what Pumat still has in stock. They’ll probably need to stock up on things like rations, if they want to follow the Nein to wherever the hell they’re going. Pumat doesn’t have much left in the way of magical items, but he stocks for adventurers, and it shows in the form of things like rope and torches and food.

“Your friends cleaned us out a bit, I’m afraid,” Pumat says, coming up behind Molly. They start a bit, fingertips lingering on the smooth edges of a tinderbox. It’s a different Pumat than the one speaking to Keg, and they muster up a smile.

“That’s alright. We don’t need too much, anyway. Like she said, we’re just catching up. But… that reminds me, actually. Before we leave, we’re meaning to find someone. Do you happen to know a Gentleman?”

* * *

It’s not the _best_ way that Molly’s ever been pressed up against a wall, they’d argue.

“Listen, we’re just trying to find the guy,” they’re saying.

The woman with her sword handle up to their throat has very pointy teeth, though they can’t read any heritage beyond human in her. She must have filed them down—they appreciate the aesthetic, though there’s something about it that makes them feel like they might have their throat ripped out by them.

“No one just _finds_ the Gentleman,” she replies, and the handle presses in tighter. Molly makes a choking noise—where the fuck are all those Crownsguard they keep seeing when they need them?

(Outside the poorer districts of Zadash, apparently—part of the reason Molly is here in the first place.)

“We bring— we bring gifts?” they try.

“You’re going to bring enemies, asking about the Gentleman like you are.”

“Well, the hope is that we find his friends, first,” they reply. She hasn’t taken the sword away—it’s getting uncomfortable, now.

“His friends are worse,” she tells them.

“Does this make you one of them?”

That gets a smile out of her. Molly cannot, for the life of them, figure out whether that’s good for them or not.

Apparently not, because she moves the sword so it’s not the handle of it pressed against their throat, but the flat of the blade. Molly can feel the tiniest bite of the edge against their neck like they’ve opened a scar, and they regret that they haven’t been around longer than this. Seems a bit unfair that they rise from the grave twice and then they get got by some lackey. At this point, they can only hope that Keg sticks around for the third one. They don’t want to come back to nothing.

Actually, nothing is fine. No one is worse.

The edge cuts in a little deeper then falls away entirely, accompanied by the sound of pain that accompanies a dwarf first kicking someone in the shins and then punching them in the stomach.

When she doubles over, Molly takes the opportunity to kick her sword a bit further away, then go for their own swords when it doesn’t make her drop hers.

“Oh, you shouldn’t have fucked with us, lady,” Keg tells her, and the woman growls.

“You shouldn’t be asking after the Gentleman.”

She swings forward with the sword, and Molly does something that makes their neck sting and bleed, but causes the woman’s sword to hit the pavement rather than Keg, as her eyes go blank with blindness.

“What the—” is the only thing she’s able to say before Keg pushes her into the wall instead, a quick glance over to Molly ensuring that they press a scimitar to her neck, as she’s a little too short to do it without the woman being on the ground first.

“You okay?” Keg asks, eyeing the blood on Molly’s neck.

They nod.

“Great. Now, you,” Keg says, trusting Molly’s judgement and swinging her attention back to the woman under the blade of their scimitar. “You are going to tell us where the Gentleman is, and you are going to tell us how to get a meeting with him, and then, _maybe,_ maybe my friend here doesn’t slit your throat and leave you bleeding out here like you were about to do with them. They’re a bit nicer than me, or else you wouldn’t be getting this offer.”

Molly feels the woman’s throat bob against their blade as she swallows, having not expected the tables to be turned like this.

“Three, two—”

“The Evening Nip,” she says, voice reedy and desperate. “Order something at the bar and say you won’t pay with gold, but with many gifts.”

“Well, that’s good, because we don’t have much gold anyway,” Molly says, and looks to Keg. “We thank you for your donation.”

Taking the hint, Keg shoves her hand into the woman’s pockets and pulls out a gold piece, a few silver pieces, and a few copper.

“Leave the copper, she should have a little something,” Molly instructs.

They ignore Keg’s eye-roll because she shoves the copper back into the woman’s pockets, and once Keg steps away, Molly takes their scimitar away from her throat. “Run along, now,” they instruct.

She does, and Molly immediately puts their swords away and shifts their attention to Keg.

“I’m—” she’s about to say sorry, but Molly tilts her chin up. Their face is prettier than their bleeding, scabbed- and scarred-over neck, after all.

“Thanks for helping me out,” they tell her.

She bites down on whatever apology she was going to give them, with a hint of annoyance, and they grin.

“Let’s go find the Evening Nip,” they say. “I think I remember where it is, now that I’ve heard the name.”

“You know, you wouldn’t have to have almost gotten killed if you’d remembered that _before_ we spent the whole day asking weird firbolgs and randos on the street who this _crime boss_ was.”

“Hey, it worked, didn’t it?”

“You’ve already died once. Don’t make it another.”

They pause at the tone. “...Don’t worry, I won’t.”

They don’t ask, but when they’re leading through the streets of Zadash, going off a vague memory of a tavern they only just remembered, Keg pipes up again. “I’d wait.”

“What?”

“I’d wait. To see if you came back. Mostly because I wouldn’t know how to get anywhere without you, but. I’d wait.”

It’s only through the virtue of their quick feet that the admission doesn’t make them trip over themself. Their throat is a little choked when they reply. “Thank you.”

They go silent, both of them, then Molly continues. “I’d come back, for you. If that’s how it works.”

* * *

They get a much warmer welcome into the Evening Nip than they were expecting. The bartender, a gruff-looking dwarf with either no recognition or a well-acted lack of it has clearly met Mollymauk before, because as soon as they drop the phrase they’d been told, he shows them to a bar underneath the building, and there’s a loud, delighted gasp, before Keg’s vision is filled with black fur.

It’s a tabaxi woman, feline face drawn up in an excited smile that shows off long fangs. Mollymauk is smiling back as Keg looks up at them, but whatever thing Keg picks up on projects something like panic, an unconscious understanding that whatever is about to happen, it may not be good.

“Lucien— Fuck, Nonagon! You’re back, you’re alive? Your friends, when they came back from their last job, they said you’d been killed. What happened?” She says, clearly delighted.

Keg is less delighted when she says a different name. Someone from Mollymauk’s past then, that they likely don’t remember enough about to fool. Perfect.

“Yes! Well, it turns out it was just a clever spell that knocked me out really well.”

Keg winces at the poorly executed lie.

Cree furrows her brow, waving them both over to a table. 

“Your cleric wasn’t able to do anything? That must have been some powerful magic to convince them you were beyond bringing back.” 

“She’s not a great cleric,” Keg chimes in. Mollymauk elbows her. They’re ungrateful.

“She does her best. Oh, I haven’t introduced you to my friend yet. This is Keg,” Mollymauk gestures to her. 

“Right. I’m Cree,” she replies, and Keg internally gives herself a pat on the back. She has a name, and so does Molly, if they don’t already know it.

“Nice to meet you,” Keg shakes her hand. She has a pretty impressive grip.

“So, you’re okay though? How is everything going? You just vanished, and your friends said you were dead; I was worried. Have you gotten in contact with anyone else?” Cree goes back to ignoring Keg.

Keg’s okay with that. She keeps glancing at Mollymauk though, because they barely remember their last life, she certainly doesn’t think they remember anything from before that.

“I’m recovering. Like you said, powerful magic and all that. I haven’t contacted anyone yet, I’m actually looking for my friends right now, we lost track of them after I di—” Keg slams her foot down on Molly’s before they can confess, “Before they thought I was dead.”

Cree nods, brow furrowing a bit. “I can help you find them, if you’d like. I believe that they’ve already departed from Zadash, but— I still have their blood. With the Gentleman’s permission, I can give you their direction.”

Keg’s never seen Molly’s eyes light up that fast. “It might be more helpful if you taught me that trick, actually. So I could track them myself.”

Cree frowns again. “You don’t remember how to do this yourself?”

Mollymauk smiles. Keg almost slams her forehead against the table. It’s abundantly clear that Molly is not fucking doing this right. Cree isn’t fooled at all. Whatever loyalty she has to them, and she will be asking Molly about it later, it’s frayed at best, figuring out that the person in front of her isn’t fucking— Lucien, or whatever the name was that she used.

They probably know it, too. “I haven’t done it in a while. And whatever spell knocked me out messed with my head a bit. Keg can commiserate— I could barely talk, when I first came back.”

“Yep. Yeah. That’s true. They were really fucked, in the head,” Keg says, nodding a little wildly. She does _not_ know what commiserate means. She’s hoping that she is commiserating.

Cree nods again, haltingly. “Well,” she says, frowning. “I will… ask the Gentleman. Perhaps we can spare some blood.”

They have to wait a minute for the Gentleman to be finished eating, and then he invites them to sit down with him. His beard is still wet from his first meal, and the food for his second is presented without too much preamble.

“Eat, eat,” he invites them, looking from Cree to Molly, then to Keg. “I must say, I’m a bit disappointed.”

“Disappointed?”

“Your friends said you had died. Collected a fair sum for it, too.”

Molly snorts. “Good for them, good for them. In their defense, though, they did _think_ I had died.”

Keg raises an eyebrow. So they’re still going with this bad lie, then.

The Gentleman shrugs. “I will ask for it back, with interest. If you have the sum on you now, I’ll have it for no interest, but I cannot fault you if not.”

“We almost definitely don’t,” Keg says.

“Yeah, they took my gold when they thought I’d died,” Molly agrees.

The Gentleman hums. “Unfortunate. But, that isn’t important. There are matters to discuss, I believe. Your friend here, we will need her blood, or we will need to kill her.”

Keg blinks rapidly, looking over at Molly, who shrugs, also a bit nervous. Clearly they did not remember this part of the transaction. “Right. Yep. Okay, weird. I’d— sure, blood.”

The Gentleman nods at the tabaxi, who takes out a small knife and leans forward to make a nick on Keg’s index finger. She crooks her finger, then, drawing the blood out of the wound, into a vial, making Keg stare in undisguised amazement. She meets Keg’s eyes, and looks away, and Keg gets the impression that if cats could blush, Cree is doing that right now.

She turns back to the Gentleman grinning. He returns a much smaller smile, and both their attentions swing to Molly as they speak up. “I’m sorry for bringing her in unannounced, but I can vouch for her. The other matter is a bit more complicated.”

“Complicated how?” the Gentleman asks, eyebrow raised.

“I’d like to have a vial of my friends’ blood so I can track them. They’ve left the city, and I don’t know where they’re off to. I’d like to find them again. I think tracking them would be helpful.”

The Gentleman nods. “They are going to the Menagerie Coast. Perhaps, in return, you have them run an errand for me, when you find them. Perhaps, if this isn’t done in a timely manner, I have Cree use _your_ blood to track _you_ down, and we see where to go from there.”

Molly grins. “That sounds fair to me.”

Keg tunes out a bit, there, taking advantage of the bar to buy herself a few drinks as Molly learns from Cree how to manipulate blood. She keeps an eye on them while they learn, nursing a dark grog that’s barely been watered down. Cree keeps looking over, and as Keg gets more to the bottom of the larger humanoid-sized tankard she’s been handed, her eyes drift more and more to the tabaxi’s movements and face, until they eventually settle there and don’t leave again.

“Hey, she’s hot,” she tells Molly as they both leave the Evening Nip, Molly’s pockets now holding a vial of Jester’s blood. (“They’d rather die than leave Jester, so she’s probably our best bet for finding the rest of them.”)

“Who?”

“Cree. The Gentleman’s hot, too, actually.”

Molly pauses. “No, you’re right.”

“Thank you. Would it be weird if I went back in?”

Molly laughs. “She was looking at you, too. But you’re drunk. Sleep it off, then tuck it in tomorrow morning?”

Keg laughs. “Sure, sure. Where to next?”

“South. They’re heading towards the Menagerie Coast, he said. And moving faster than we can. I doubt we’ll catch up, but maybe they’ll spend a few nights in Nicodranas for us.”

Keg crosses her fingers. Molly laughs, looking down at her, then crosses theirs.

* * *

They get to a big field just outside of Trostenwald and Mollymauk stops dead in their tracks. Keg slams into their legs. 

“What? What’s wrong? Is there something in our way?” Keg’s irritated. They’ve been traveling all day with little breaks, too worried about their friends to stop.

Molly understands it, they’re sure Keg does too. But right now, they need to stop.

There used to be a tent in this field. More than one, actually. Enough tents to put on a show, and a damn good one, Mollymauk remembers. This is where it all started. That night when everything went to shit with the toad monster.

They found their family here, so many nights ago. 

Standing here now, they find the memory of the start again. They let the memories bring them to their knees, not wanting a headache.

They’re only shaken from their stupor when Keg snaps directly in front of their face.

“Molly? Are you okay? What’s up?” She barely has to bend down to make eye contact.

“This is where it started.”

“Okay, that doesn’t actually _mean_ anything to me. Where what started? No more cryptic bullshit, come on.”

“The Mighty Nein. This is where the circus was— the night we all met. Where we fought together for the first time.” The words keep catching in their throat. 

The flashes of memories are fading to the back again, but there’s so much _more_ in their head, now. So much more than they’d had before. Still blurry in parts, but there’s more to be fuzzy.

“Okay. Got it. Do you need to sit here, or can we go? Kneeling in the middle of a field isn’t the best idea.” Keg offers them a hand.

“I can move.” They use Keg’s hand to start getting up. “You might need to hang onto me. Just in case.”

Keg rolls her eyes and dusts off their knees for them. “Yeah, I’m sure you have no ulterior motive for that one.”

Molly notes with satisfaction, though, that she doesn’t let go of their hand. They do actually need it. It’s odd, how powerful these memories are. Nothing else has knocked them down like this. They’re used to being drained when they remember details, but not overpowered. They’ve never had memories layering over reality to the point where only Keg’s hand is anchoring them.

Keg lets the silence drag on for almost a half hour before she speaks up. “Is it just that you guys met here that’s fucking you up? Or is something else going on?” 

“Nothing else, no.” They pause.

“Then why this place? You’ve remembered before and it never did that.”

“I think— This is where it started.”

“Yes, you said that already, are you going to be a broken record again?” Keg’s annoyance hides worry. They haven’t been empty for… quite a while.

“No.” They rub at their temple with a free hand. “This is where it started, so this is the link. I came back because I had people to come back to this time. I met those people here. It’s messing with my memories a bit. That’s all.”

“Okay, okay. But you’re cool?”

“I think so,” they reply.

Keg nods, reassured. The two of them make it about halfway into the town before they’re approached by a very excited half-elf.

“Mollymauk— You— You’re back, you’ve done it again.”

Molly stumbles back a few steps, because this stranger has his arms thrown around their neck.

“Hey, hey, back off!” Keg shoves at his legs until the figure takes a step back, stumbling at her insistent strength.

“I apologize, of course. You won’t remember me. I’m Gustav.”

Molly smiles, though it doesn’t reach their eyes. They’ve done this before. “Sorry, I do try to keep track, I’m just terrible with faces. You know how how it is.”

“You don’t have to lie, Molly. I’m from the circus, I was there when you showed up covered in dirt the first time. You don’t have to lie to me.” 

Mollymauk blinks. They barely remember waking up that first time now, so to have this stranger relay it to them is something else.

“In that case, I have no idea who you are, I’m sorry.” 

Gustav’s smile flickers for a second but then he shrugs.

“Here, let me buy you two a round of drinks, and I can tell you the story while you’re here, what about that?” Gustav suggests.

“That sounds fucking perfect,” Keg chimes in.

“It’s good with me,” Molly replies.

“Perfect.” Gustav drapes an arm over Molly’s shoulder. He glances towards Keg. “I’d do the same to you, but I don’t think I can reach both.”

They duck into the nearest bar, and Gustav gets them both something simple.

“Okay, how much do you remember? Anything?” he prompts.

“I remember fighting. I remember you, but vaguely, though. I remember the Mighty Nein most clearly. Less about you. I’m sorry.”

Molly really is. They don’t know who Gustav is, not really, but they know that they should remember him. They wish that they could.

“I know you can’t control that. I’m surprised that you remember them, maybe second time was the charm huh?”

“Maybe. It might have just been them though, they’re pretty incredible.”

“That they are. You know, they got me out of jail? Now, granted, I was in jail because of the whole demon toad incident. That, you remember. But, they just showed up out of nowhere and paid my bail, so now I can go wherever. I tried very hard to convince them not to, and they still insisted on doing that good deed. The little one shelled out a thousand gold like it was nothing. So I suppose I don’t need to ask if you’re doing well for yourself.”

Molly smiles.

“Guess I did leave some kind of an impact on them. That’s good to hear.” 

“Oh, you definitely did. You’ve always done that, though, even in the towns with the circus.”

Gustav keeps talking as they finish up their drinks, detailing each town their circus went in. Molly listens with rapt attention, but it feels as though Gustav is describing the actions of a stranger. Everything he says makes sense, they’re sure they would do it.

The people he describes though, the bonds that Molly supposedly had with all of them, they just don’t know. They leave the conversation quieter than they entered it. Keg is uncharastically quiet, too.

They’re glad that they met Gustav, but that was a lifetime ago. A separate life, before their new family, lost from their memory along with their death.

Keg holds their hand when they _leave_ Trostenwald, too. It helps.

* * *

“Hey, look me up and down. Do you think I can get in the doors?”

Keg doesn’t look up. “We don’t have the money for you to play dress-up,” she tells Molly. “Frankly, unless we get paid, sell something, or mug Jester’s mom, we’re not gonna make it all the way to Port Damali.”

She keeps her words quiet, because she doesn’t want another disapproving look from the boutique owner. When they’d walked in, she’d smugly informed them that her wares were a bit expensive, and Keg had almost spat in her face. She doesn’t want the owner to hear that she was right in pegging them as unable to pay for any of these nice clothes.

“Look up,” Molly tells her, again, and this time, Keg does.

They’re in a deep blue gown, neckline so deep that their shoulders are bare, drapey long sleeves and a silver-trimmed sash around their waist. Keg blinks.

“I could wear it with my tapestry,” they say, stepping over to her. They’ve kicked off their boots, and it’s a little strange how their step feels a bit more like prowling when there’s no loud two-click beat of their heels on the floor. “And some nice statement jewelry. What do you think?”

“I think it’s blasphemy to wear your tapestry with a neckline like that,” Keg replies, reaching up to pluck at it.

“Exactly why I like it,” they reply, and she looks up to see the smirk on their face. It makes her smile in return.

“We still need to get someone to clean the blood off that thing.”

“You’re the one who’s saying we don’t have enough money for it,” Molly replies. “I _could_ just wear the tapestry.”

“Now, that would be a statement. It’s your friend’s mom we’re walking in on. You can’t just wear a tapestry.”

“I personally think it would let her know who I was immediately, without us even having to introduce ourselves. At least, if Jester has told her mother anything at all about me.”

Keg takes the edge of a sleeve between her fingers to feel, because Molly is leaning over the chair she’s sitting on, and looks up again. “She might not have. I think you’re supposed to avoid telling your parents about bad influences.”

Molly feigns hurt. “I can’t believe you would call me a bad influence.”

“Dress like that, I have to,” she teases.

“Just because I suggested we all get naked together a few times doesn’t make me a bad influence on Jester.”

“I think the implications of the getting naked together being for reasons other than bathing _do_ make you a bad influence.”

“Jester was a fan of my ideas.”

“You don’t need to advertise that to her _mother.”_

Their tail is swishing now, in a way that matches their delighted smile. Keg’s gaze drops down to it when it knocks against her ankle, and when she looks back up Molly’s speaking again. “Her mother is a prostitute. I have a feeling that I’m not teaching Jester anything new.”

“Really? I thought she was a singer.”

“Slash lady of the night. Don’t look so interested, you’ve got Beau to get back to.”

Keg punches them, affectionate. “I’m not gonna _sleep_ with your friend’s mom. Besides, I can’t leave you alone for that long. You’ll get into trouble.”

“Oh, I get into a lot of things, but trouble is never one of them.”

That makes Keg laugh loudly enough to get the boutique owner to look over at them. She quiets down, noticing, and when Molly sees this, they frown. “Ignore her,” they tell Keg.

“I’m not in the business of getting kicked out of nice places.”

“Somehow, I don’t believe you.”

“I’m not in the business of getting kicked out for _no reason,”_ Keg amends.

“Just for mugging the owner.”

“I’ve never mugged anyone in my life.”

It’s Molly’s turn, then, to laugh loudly, and Keg doesn’t bother to want _them_ to be quiet. Their laugh is nicer than hers, anyway. “I believe you. You’re just so gorgeous, people love to give you things.”

Keg laughs like she thinks it’s a joke, though there’s a small, traitorous part of her that doesn’t think that Molly calling her gorgeous sounds like it’s in jest. She looks down at their feet, and is about to suggest that they go find a nice pair of shoes, but then she feels the now-familiar touch of their hand on her face, and her mouth closes automatically.

They tilt her chin up to look at them, and Keg realizes. “Oh, this is the look-up.” She does not mean to sound disappointed.

“What?”

She schools her voice a little more when she speaks again. “You asked me to look you up and down. Are you gonna be flirting this much with Jester’s mom?”

Molly blinks. Keg regrets her words immediately. Of course they weren’t flirting— 

“Oh. Yeah, that was part of it. What do you think?”

“Don’t flirt with Jester’s mom.”

“Noted.”

“Now, come on, we can’t afford this, let’s get that dress off of you.” Keg falls back into gruffness, kicking kindly at Molly’s lashing tail.

They’re right back to flirting, then, but it’s the safe kind. “Oh, is that an invitation? Will you help?”

“Get your ass back to the dressing room and we’ll see.”

* * *

It’s not _easy_ to get into the Lavish Chateau. It’s even more difficult to get a meeting with Jester’s mother, but once they drop Jester’s name, the minotaur at the door is a little more willing, it seems, to let them see her.

They don’t get left alone with her, but it’s enough that they get an audience at all.

She’s beautiful, Molly thinks, seeing little notes of Jester in the arch of her nose and the way her smile dimples when she smiles warmly at them. They realize, quickly, that the picture of Jester that they had in their hand was a bit off, and decline to feel guilty for it as her face crystallizes in their head.

“I thought I had met all of my daughter’s friends,” the Ruby says, polite but a bit… dismissive, perhaps?

Molly remembers enough from the circus to know when someone doesn’t trust them. Jester’s mother does not trust them.

They give her a deep bow, and Keg, next to them, clanks a bit as she jumps and does the same thing. They almost laugh, but instead they straighten to introduce themself. “You’ve almost certainly met all the ones she’s currently travelling with. We’re… older friends.”

The Ruby’s face draws into a small, suspicious frown, and Molly curses themself and starts over. “I know she’s spoken to you, in the past. Sent letters and whatnot. If she’s mentioned a Mollymauk, that’s me. This is Keg, the woman she might have mentioned save her from the slavers.”

They can read some sort of understanding, then suspicion, dawn again.

“She told me that Molly was dead. She was still grieving about it,” she accuses.

Molly feels Keg’s hand against their hip, a warning. They ignore it. “Did she mention that I already had a penchant for coming back? It happened again. I’m sure I could prove it, were you to ask me for stories I’m sure your daughter has given you.”

The Ruby’s eyebrows draw together as she searches their face, but she seems to accept it. Her face relaxing relaxes something in Molly, too, and they grin.

She returns the smile. “It’s nice to meet you, Mollymauk. And you, Keg.”

“Please, call me Molly.”

“Sup,” Keg says, slightly uncomfortable with the sudden change of tone in the conversation.

“Of course. Call me Marion, in that case. I hope you don’t mind my hesitation. My daughter and her companions already came to visit, and they… did not leave Nicodranas in the highest of esteem. So I am wary, now, of anyone asking for her.”

“What’d they do?” Keg asks.

Marion laughs. “I wish I could tell you. I was not given much detail, myself. My little sapphire has a penchant for… dwelling on the interesting details, and glossing over the larger picture.”

Molly nods. “What _do_ you know? We’re trying to track them down, and meet back up with them.”

“They stole a ship, as I understand it,” Marion replies, a fond smile on her face. “Jester is still very excited to be a pirate.”

“Stealing a ship,” Molly replies. “That’s amazing.”

“This came after they returned to me, saying they had done away with a client of mine that had been giving me trouble,” Marion replies. “They had a… very eventful few days, here.”

Her smile falls a little, there, and Molly hums. “Only a few days?”

“Unfortunately,” Marion replies, looking wistful for only a second before looking back to her two guests and smiling. “But that’s unimportant. I’m glad to meet more of my daughter’s friends. Please, tell me what’s happened since her stories with you stopped. I’ve found that her friends’ stories are some of the most… interesting I’ve ever heard.”

Keg looks to Molly. Molly looks to Keg. “Uh, sure. I guess… I’ll start? Since I was there for the whole, Iron Shepherd takedown?”

“Yeah, go ahead,” Molly says, waving Keg on. There’s tea, now, light and fruity, that Marion says was left to her by the Clay fellow Molly has yet to meet.

“Sure. So, uh, I met these four on the Glory Run Road up in the Empire, like, a month or two ago, and they’d just lost their friends…” Keg starts.

Molly and Marion both listen, letting Keg’s words wash over them, enjoying the way she tells her stories, a bit crass and exaggerated—like the way she learned how to tell them was around a campfire, ale rather than tea in her hands, trying to outdo whoever spoke first.

Molly chimes in only when they’re needed, explaining to Marion when she asks, how they’re tracking the group. Her mouth turns into a frown when they explain how they use blood, but she seems to quickly forgive them for it, as they tell her the ordeal that was learning.

For the most part, though, they listen to Keg. She’s animated, preening under the attention of Marion’s well-placed comments and seemingly instinctive way of asking questions and probing for information. Molly understands, easily, why she’s known across the Menagerie Coast. Marion has a way with people that Molly can only hope for.

It’s dark and late before Marion hides a polite yawn and Molly and Keg both realize how long they’ve been keeping her, near-simultaneously. Keg scrambles to her feet, and Molly sits forward, primed for whatever trouble she’s noticed or remembered, before relaxing as she starts speaking. “We should— it’s late, we should go.”

Marion smiles. “It _is_ late, but I’m not about to kick my dear daughter’s friends out of my home. Stay as long as you like, please. There are guest rooms still prepared, if you don’t mind sleeping where your friends did.”

“Of course not,” Molly replies, and they exchange some manner of politeness before the two of them are shown to their rooms. The sheets are still mussed, and they imagine they can smell their family close. Like Caleb slept here. It’s not… pleasant-smelling, but they enjoy the memories that the scent lights up anyway.

Keg lets them lie facedown in the pillows for a minute or two, getting nostalgic, before she throws a balled-up towel at their head and says, “There’s probably really nice baths here. Get your ass up and naked.”

They grin, push themself up to their elbows, and promise the pillow that they’ll be back.

* * *

“Stop that. No. Get _out,”_ Keg grumbles, pushing at Molly’s face as they slip into the bed with her. “Molly, it’s hot, get out.”

“It’s only hot because I’m here, you’ll get used to it,” they laugh, and Keg relents, because of course she does.

“Asshole,” she grumbles, and she sits up when they pull out a piece of paper. “What’s that?”

“Letter for Jester, when we find her,” they reply.

“That’s nice.”

Molly hums an affirmation. There’s a pause, something that Keg can tell is them mulling over saying something. “You know,” they say. “I’ve been with you longer than I’ve been with them, now.”

“Really?”

Molly nods. “They’ve had Clay longer than me.”

“If Clay is still there,” Keg points out.

“He made it this far. The ship-stealing was… something, but he’s spent so long with them that he’s probably fine.”

“What, you think he’d get in trouble for them?”

“They’re a good group. He’s been with them as long as I’ve been with you. Longer, even. I’d get in trouble for _you,”_ Molly replies.

Keg laughs like that doesn’t make her want to kill something for them. She disguises the feeling with punching them in the arm. “I don’t get in trouble.”

That makes them laugh, loudly.

Keg kisses them.

It shuts them up, and the both of them are surprised when she pulls away.

“Uh,” Keg says, already planning her escape route. How is she gonna explain that away? “I meant to thank you for getting in trouble for me and my lips got confused.”

“It’s okay? It’s okay,” Molly says.

“Sorry. Uh. You laughed.”

“I do that a lot.”

Keg hums some sort of sulky acknowledgement of that fact, and Molly repeats, “It’s okay.”

“I didn’t mean to—” 

“They should get confused more often.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

She kisses them again.

They leave Nicodranas soon enough after, not willing to waste time when their friends are still so far away.

“Molly,” Keg says one night, four days later.

“Mm?”

“We should have asked Marion to tell Jester you were alive.”

There’s silence for a beat, then, “Fuck.”

* * *

“Stop that,” Keg says.

Her voice startles Molly out of their thoughts, and they look from the ocean to her, properly. “Stop what?”

“Thinking so much,” comes the reply, Keg pushing herself up onto her elbows and frowning at them, as she does so well. “I can literally hear you thinking. Stop it.”

“Sorry, sorry, I forgot that you have a vendetta against any thinking at all,” Molly teases.

“Only when you’re being stupid,” Keg replies.

“How do you know I’m being stupid?”

“You’re looking into the far distance like a weirdo and I haven’t had to tell you to shut up in the past few minutes even though I’m trying to sleep.” She sits up, eyes now fixed on Molly’s. “It’s really not all that hard to figure out.”

“And I thought I did well with reading people,” Molly replies, grinning.

“Who’s told you that?”

“Myself. Remember, I used to read fortunes?”

“You said that was bullshit.”

“Bullshit about the cards being magical, yes, but it’s also some carefully-cultivated skills in people-reading. The classic fill in the blank fortunes are all well and good, but people like them better, and pay better, when I give them fortunes where I give them something they want to hear. It’s just watching reactions, keep talking when it looks like they need more,” Molly explains.

“Huh.”

“Thank you.”

“Shush.” She’s too far away to punch them, but they can see the affection in her smile, anyway. She sobers up after a second, though, recognizing that they’re trying to distract her. Damn her, damn the time they’ve spent together. She’s gotten good at figuring them out. Even better at it when they’re not talking. “So, what are you actually thinking about?”

“Them,” Molly replies. As if the answer is ever gonna be anything else, as if it’s ever not gonna be them, or her. They split their time.

“What about them?”

“I don’t know,” they admit, looking back at the ocean. “I wanna know what they’re doing, and I don’t. I want to know where they are, and I do, but I don’t know shit about the coast, or the sea, or the islands. I don’t know if they’re in some fuck-off tiny village somewhere, or if they’ve stayed on the water, or what.”

“Your… blood thing, it doesn’t tell you that?”

“No, no. Just where they are. Direction and distance. Not… elevation, or anything.”

“We should have bought a map.”

Molly laughs. “Neither of us can read one!”

“Really? You still can’t?”

Molly shrugs. “I learned how to read again in the circus. But… not well. Never interested me much. So I doubt I retained a lot, coming back.”

“Do you think it’ll come back like shit came back in Hupperdook? When you see people again?”

Molly shrugs, grins. “I don’t know. I’ve only come back twice once.”

Keg grins right back. “Oh, yeah. I’m hoping you remember it. Only happens that second time once a lifetime.”

“Oh, trust me, I know. I mean, I don’t remember shit, but.”

Keg’s eyebrows draw up a bit. “You don’t?”

Molly winces, holds their hand out to wave it in a so-so motion. “Eh. It’s all a little fuzzy. I didn’t have words, and I don’t remember a whole lot of the first few days when I didn’t.”

“Huh.” Keg lies back down. “Weird.”

“Mhm,” Molly agrees. “We’re gonna have to figure out why I came back, probably. The rest of them will probably insist. So we’ll probably have to go meet Cree again, and everyone else she mentioned.”

“What do you mean, we?”

The question takes Molly by surprise. “I mean— you know. Me and you, and the rest of them.”

“No, no, I got that. I just didn’t think— I didn’t think I was sticking around, you know.”

“No. No, I— I assumed you were sticking around.” Luckily, Molly doesn’t sound disappointed, but their heart is somewhere around their knees, and only travelling south.

“I mean. I was pretty sure this was, y’know, kinda a escort job,” Keg says. “With my part of it being over when you were back with your friends.”

“Sure, sure.” Molly draws their knees up closer to their chest. “But you really wanna go all the way back to Shady Creek Run? Alone?”

Keg pauses. “No,” she admits. “That place is a shithole. And, like. I like you.”

Molly grins. “Good. I like you, too. I could deal with you sticking around.”

“I think I can deal with sticking around.”

“I’m sure Beau’ll appreciate it.”

Keg frowns.

“What?”

“Just— that’s— isn’t that weird for you to say? I kissed you.”

“Oh.” Molly thinks for a second. “I mean, no? I think that’s just a thing I don’t mind.”

“What is?”

“Having multiple partners. Or, my partners having partners. I don’t mind.”

Keg hums. Molly tries not to feel too much joy at the fact that she doesn’t argue partners. “We’ll see. I don’t even know if your friends will want me around.”

“Well, I think Caleb, Nott, Beau and me all will. Clay, too. Worse comes to it, we outvote them.”

Keg laughs, and it sounds fully genuine for the first time tonight. “Thanks, thanks. It would have been weird, if you hadn’t wanted me around. I think this is the most time I’ve spent with someone since… the Iron Shepherds, I guess. Or Yuto.”

“Your friend?” Molly asks.

Keg rubs a hand over her badly-shaved jaw. “Yeah.”

“Do I live up to expectations?”

Keg looks them over. They don’t miss the appreciation in her eyes, despite the dark of the night. “Yeah. No, yeah, you do.”

“Better or worse kisser?”

Keg snorts, and surges forward to try and punch them. They scramble backwards, laughing. “Truce! Truce! I was just curious.”

“I’m not making any comparisons. Yuto was just a friend, and I don’t want you asking about Beau.”

Molly scrunches up their face. “Ew.”

“Yeah.”

“I’ll just assume the answer is better.”

“You know, your friends are gonna be really happy to have you back.”

“They’re your friends, too.”

“Some of them, sure. I didn’t really meet the rest of them.”

“Well, you’ll love them. Jester’s easy to love. Fjord’s very charming, very handsome. And Yasha is absolutely wonderful.”

They frown, thinking of Yasha. Thinking about the scream they barely remember, her display of grief that they might have dreamed. They hope she’s still with the Mighty Nein. After Zuella, after their own death, she doesn’t deserve to be alone.

“What are you thinking about now?”

“Just wondering if Port Damali is our best bet. They’re still out at sea.”

“I mean, we don’t know what the fuck they’re doing. We know they’re probably gonna end up there eventually, and we know how to get to Port Damali, which is way better than we’re gonna get for any other tiny town on the way. I can read road signs better than maps,” Keg tells them.

They nod. “I just don’t want to miss them.”

“We’ll find them. And we’ll spend a few days on the beach waiting for them. It won’t be bad. The ocean _looks_ really nice, and we can rest for a few days. Sip some margaritas, nap on the beach. I don’t know what people do there.”

Molly moves, to lie down next to her. “We’ll figure it out.”

Keg turns onto her side to look at them. “We do have all that money from Jester’s mom,” she concedes. “That’ll go pretty far.”

It’s technically money meant for Jester, but Molly decided, and Keg agreed, that she would probably forgive them for spending some of it. “Plenty of time to convince you I’m a better kisser than Beau,” they grin.

“We’re kissing again?”

“If you want.”

“Yep. Yeah. Absolutely. Let’s— yep.”

It’s a much more pleasant way for their blood to be put to work than singing in the direction of the Mighty Nein, so close and too far. Molly leans as far into it as they possibly can.

* * *

They were going to touch down in Port Damali eventually.

Molly just didn’t think it’d be the same beach that _they_ were on.

The Mighty Nein is covered in sand and coughing up seawater, and Molly doesn’t think they’ve ever seen a more gorgeous group of people.

They put their margarita down and kick Keg awake.

“Wha—?” she starts, but Molly’s already gone, down the beach where Beau is the furthest up.

They pull her into a hug, and she punches them in the stomach through her coughing fit. It’s not very strong.

“Get— get off of me!” she insists, desperate and defensive, and Molly understands that there’s something serious in it. They back off, sensing the panic that she can’t protect herself from someone she thought was dead a minute ago, not right now.

The coughing subsides after a second, and Molly’s heart breaks a little bit when Beau’s stance is defensive, looking up at them. Her eyes are squinted against the sun, there’s tear tracks down her cheeks, her face is screwed up and bleeding a bit, and there’s sand and saliva from coughing so hard down her chin, and Molly almost kisses her.

“It’s Mollymauk,” they say instead.

“Molly,” she rasps, voice wrecked from… probably almost-drowning.

“Keg’s here, too,” they tell her.

“Keg,” she repeats.

She pushes herself to her feet shakily, and throws her arms around their neck. They grunt quietly as she sags, legs failing her when she uses them too fast. They keep her up, though, sand smeared onto their neck when she starts coughing again.

“You’re real?”

“I’m real,” Molly confirms, casting their attention out to the rest of them. Keg approaches, then, and Molly practically dumps Beau on her as they see Yasha’s mess of dark hair, body trembling as she throws up seawater.

When they run up and drop down to their knees in front of her, they skid a little bit, and she looks up, sand in her eyelashes and tears in her eyes, and she retches one last time before tackling them onto the beach. It’s the grossest feeling Molly’s ever known, covered in sand and bile and water and saliva and tears from their friends’ no good, very bad day, but it’s so, so much better than any of them drowning.

They wrap their arms around Yasha and squeak quietly when she hugs them, crushing and awful. She buries her head into their chest, and sobs so loudly that Molly thinks it’s a scream, at first. It rips at their chest the same way that it did when they were still in their grave, and pulls out the last of them, shaking the dirt out of their ribs and clawing the rot out of their lungs, and replaces it with the sand that drips off her hair along with the saltwater.

“I love you too,” they tell her, and she presses her gritty lips against their cheek.

“Molly!” comes the next yell, as the rest of them start to realize that the purple tiefling up the beach from them isn’t just a hallucination brought on by too much inhaled saltwater.

Their ears perk at Jester’s excitement, and they open an arm to invite her to hug them, though they’re loathe to let go of Yasha at all. She just hugs them tighter, as Jester stumbles towards them and practically collapses on top of Yasha in order to hug Molly, too.

“You’re here!” she tells them, and they laugh, nodding.

“I’m here.”

She presses her lips to theirs, and they screw up their mouth a bit at the taste of the sea before hugging her closer.

It’s Nott, next, her hand on Caleb, obviously having checked on him before checking on the pile that is currently a scream-sobbing Yasha, a giggle-sobbing Jester, and the squished body lying underneath them, holding them as close as physically possible, their tail lashing delightedly and spraying sand over all of them.

Nott practically bites them when she kisses their forehead, too hard, and Caleb’s amazed gentle touch against their upper arm, checking that they’re real, makes their breath catch in a sob of their own.

Fjord, then, collapsing against Jester still coughing and looking more gray than green, takes their hand in his and they squeeze it as hard as they can manage.

And, last, Beau, helped down the beach by Keg, falling in the pile herself.

“Should I go? Like, should I go get Clay?” Keg asks, awkwardly.

Someone murmurs an affirmative, though Molly doesn’t feel like it’s them.

The pink-haired firbolg is the last to them, practically dragged by Keg. Jester raises a shaky hand to him, half-pushing herself up off of Molly to do so, and there’s dull light of healing as Clay leans into Jester’s hand and Caleb’s shoulder.

“Who’s this?” he asks, peering down at Molly.

“I’m Mollymauk,” Molly replies with a smile. “I was dead.”

“How are you alive again?” Clay asks.

“It’s a long story. Keg probably remembers more of it than I do.”

“No I don’t.”


End file.
